Indians are well-covered, no need to panic: Experts
NEW DELHI: India may be in a unique position in terms of immunity compared to other countries with fewer proportions of people vaccinated or infected in the past, according to experts, who backed the government’s appeals for the public to avoid panic over the Omicron variant.
India detected the first known infections with the Omicron variant of Sars-cov-2, which has triggered alarm in several countries after infections surged rapidly in a South Africa province and genome analysis showed an unprecedented number of mutations. But it is still not established if the variant can defeat immunity from vaccines or past exposure to the virus, or if it leads to more serious disease.
“At this point there is no reason to panic as Indians are well placed immunologically because of the high sero prevalence found in surveys that could be due to natural infection or vaccine-derived. A majority of the population at the moment has antibodies,” said Dr Amita Jain, professor and head of microbiology department, King George’s Medical University in Lucknow.
Dr Gagandeep Kang, one of the top vaccine experts in India, said: “Natural infection plus vaccination together provides the broadest possible protection; therefore, in that way, Indians are very well covered. There is no need to panic as now we have tools that we did not have before—drugs and vaccines, which can be quickly updated if needed. The strategy should be watch, track and measure.”
Researchers in South Africa and several other countries are conducting studies to better understand the variant, and are regularly sharing findings.
The new variant is heavily mutated, with up to 32 mutations in the spike protein alone.
The World Health Organization, which classified the variant as being of concern last week, is carrying out and coordinating several studies to determine the threat Omicron poses.
“Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalisation in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected, rather than a result of specific infection with Omicron…,” said WHO in an update on Omicron. Interim analysis also seems to suggest that most of the symptoms seen are mild.
“Yes what is seen globally is that most cases are either asymptomatic or with mild symptom, but it will be too early to establish a trend as the sample size is comparatively smaller. More studies are being done and we need to look at further evidence that gets generated,” said Dr SK, Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control.
Experts also say the real-world data out till now suggests Omicron may not be that big a problem. “The evidence so far doesn’t seem to support the variant causing either more severe disease or escaping immune responses. While computational analysis that shows more than 30 mutations due to which it may escaping the antibodies but in real world it may not escape all the antibodies. It isn’t very wise right now to predict immune evasiveness,” said Jain.
Anurag Agrawal, director, CSIR- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, said: “That Omicron would have reached in India in November was almost guaranteed. Nothing has changed by actually sequencing and confirming. There is no need to panic; just [need] to continually assess risks in a scientific manner and to be prepared.” WHO also said that the detection of Omicron in India was not unexpected as people these days travel extensively to other countries.
“The confirmation of Omicron Variant of Concern today by India, the first two cases in WHO Southeast Asia Region, was not unexpected in view of the interconnected world that we live in. This emphasizes on the need for all countries to step up surveillance, to be on alert and rapidly detect any importation and take measures to curtail further spread of the virus,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director of WHO South-east Asia.